The world through a lens
What makes a travel picture? The fact the photographer went to a foreign place or that the place is foreign to the viewer? The answer is both at the Photographer's Gallery's latest exhibition, subtitled Tourism And Travel At Home And Away, and documenting the turn of the 1940s to the present day, through the work of 33 international photographers.
As a collection, it's a flurry of contrasts: banal shots of suburban crossroads feature alongside rigidly-posed family portraits. Meanwhile, Raghubir Singh's work depicts detailed, animated street scenes in India, and Ari Marcopoulos captures snowboarders in flight. There's a focus on 'straight', or documentary, photography from the 1970s and 1980s. Stand-out scenes include Karlheinz Weinberger's wry, almost insidious snaps of biker gangs, and film director Larry Clark's grizzly sex, drugs 'n' youth images from 1970s Tulsa - demonstrating a longtime love of shock value. In the gallery's tiny spaces, it doesn't add up to the most cohesive of journeys, but you will find some memorably vivid turns along the way.
Until June 4, Photographer's Gallery, 5 and 8 Great Newport Street WC2, Mon to Sat 11am to 6pm, Sun midday to 6pm, free.
Tel: 020 7831 1772
Tube: Leicester Square.
